Screenwriting From Iowa

 [President Obama]was very easy to talk to. I’ve been invited to watch the 4th of July fireworks on the White House lawn.”  Taylor Morris Tonight Taylor Morris will celebrating the 4th of July at the White House. Just five years ago he was a recent graduate of Cedar Falls High School here in Cedar Falls, [...]

Original Source…

“The fundamental thing that’s true of both [journalism & screenwriting] is that there’s a beginning, a middle, and an end. What I really understood as a magazine writer was when the beginning had to start to end, and the middle had to begin, and when the middle had to start to end and when the [...]

Original Source…

“For years, I just wrote scripts that didn’t get made.” Nora Ephron “Originally I went into movies not because I was burnt out on journalism but from economic desperation. When my marriage broke up, I had two kids and I figured I’d better get my act together because nobody else was going to help.” Nora [...]

Original Source…

I think it’s fitting that writing this 1,300th post for Screenwriting from Iowa…and Other Unlikely Places started in New York City (Hotel Belleclaire–where Mark Twain was once a guest) and ended home in Cedar Falls, Iowa—but that today is my birthday.  The goal for this blog when I began in January 2008 was to simply pull [...]

Original Source…

In the last 48 hours I’ve taken one long bath in New York City. Not a literal bath because my hotel room doesn’t have a bath tub. (In fact, the “upgraded” room is about the size of a bathroom in other places in the United States.) But like most of my trips over the years [...]

Original Source…

Today I was shooting a video project in New York City and on a brief lunch break I took this photo of Congregation Rodeph Sholom, on the Upper West Side near Central Park. The inscription on the building reads:  DO JUSTLY, LOVE MERCY, AND WALK HUMBLY WITH THY GOD (From the book of Micah, and [...]

Original Source…

“In On Moral Fiction, John C. Gardner states, ‘True art clarifies life, establishes models of human action, casts nets toward the future, carefully judges our right and wrong directions, celebrates, and mourns. It does not rant. It does not sneer or giggle in the face of death, it invents prayers and weapons. It designs visions [...]

Original Source…

Back in January of 2011 I wrote a post called How to Get Started Working in Production about how Josh McCabe started working for me while in college and was heading out to Los Angeles to work as an assistant editor. Josh returned to Iowa last week to visit his family and stopped by the office [...]

Original Source…

Regrets, I’ve had a few But then again, two few to mention My Way/Performed by Frank Sinatra Earlier this week I did one day of camerawork for a Canadian TV documentary titled Regret being produced by Newfoundland’s Christopher Richardson. We shot Kevin Hansen speaking to a class at the University of Northern Iowa in Cedar Falls, [...]

Original Source…

As Pixar storyboard artist Emma Coat’s list 22 #storybasics I’ve picked up in my time at Pixar blazed through the internet this month, I wanted to try and find a fresh angle to do a post on it and add to the conversation. So I thought I’d pick a three from her list and tie then into posts [...]

Original Source…